Your typical "Check my build"

[fatpat268]

Now... what I'm building is an HTPC that will look good with the rest of my home theater components. I'm pretty flexible with components and trying to keep it under $1000... $900 was actually my budget, but I can get a few more bucks pretty easily, and I figure I could save a few bucks finding some parts on For Sale/Trade forum.

I'm not locked into intel, but I figured a dual core processor would be beneficial, and intel has the cheapest one. Of course if a single core is better for an HTPC, I'd go with that instead. I don't plan to overclock, and I do plan on having 2gb of ram, but for the sake of a budget, I'll keep it at 1gb for now. And I don't plan on doing any type of gaming on this computer.

And I'm *fairly* locked in to that case. Of course I like antec's cases, it's pretty cheap, and I think it'll look pretty good. But of course, if there's better HTPC cases, I'm open to suggestions.


Antec Solution Series NSK2400 Black/Silver Steel MicroATX Desktop Computer Case 380W ATX12V v2.0 Power Supply $84.99
NEC 16X DVD±R DVD Burner Silver IDE Model ND-3550A - OEM $39.99
Microsoft A9O-00018 WinXP Media Center Infrared Remote Control w/ Receiver - OEM $39.99
ASUS P5LD2-VM Socket T (LGA 775) Intel 945G Micro ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail $104.99
Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD2500KS 250GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive $93.00
CORSAIR ValueSelect 1GB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Unbuffered System Memory Model VS1GB533D2 $72.00
Microsoft Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 w/Update Rollup Release 2 OEM 1 Pack - OEM $114.95
Intel Pentium D 805 Smithfield 533MHz FSB LGA 775 Dual Core,EM64T Processor Model BX80551PE2666FN - Retail $134.00
CHAINTECH AV-710 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - Retail $23.00
ASUS EN6200TC TOP/TD/128M Geforce 6200TC 128MB GDDR2 PCI Express x16 Low Profile Video Card - Retail $49.99
Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 500 MCE White box PCI Interface Tuner Card - Retail $144.99
Total $898.89 ($949.30 with shipping)

Also, the board supports DDR2-533 and DDR2-667; would I be seeing a performance increase by going to DDR-677, after all, it's only 3 bucks more for the same value memory.

Thanks

*updated for links

 

[Azndude2190]

Looks good to me...

 

[LtPage1]

looks pretty sweet to me.

 

[fatpat268]

thanks any other thoughts?

I wanna make sure I'm not wasting money in one spot where I could be spending it somewhere else. But of course there's not much room to change around.

 

[secretanchitman]

looks fine to me! not much to add/change to it. i think some people would say go amd dual-core, but that intel 805 is darn cheap and i would stick with it!

congrats on your build!

 

[frankgomez75]

sorry bud, but that case has heat issues... I chunked mine in the trash. Upgraded to a Thermalright Mozart Case
Look for another case with better airflow, as that one will tend to trap a lot of heat in the case.

 

[fatpat268]

Originally posted by: frankgomez75
sorry bud, but that case has heat issues... I chunked mine in the trash. Upgraded to a Thermalright Mozart Case
Look for another case with better airflow, as that one will tend to trap a lot of heat in the case.

Oh really?
I figured with the help of 2 120 mm fans that cooling would be at least decent, and there was one review that said it had decent airflow (yea, i know... you can't always take the reviews on newegg seriously)

But thanks for letting me know because I do know that the 805 is a fairly hot processor. Yeah, I was looking at the Mozart case... and while it looks great, it's hard to justify a $129 case for me. I've always been accustomed to taking say a $50 case and get a good power supply along with it, and I'd be fine.

Guess you have have to pay a little more for HTPC cases, I guess. It's not too bad though, I can easily fit it in my budget.

Thanks for the suggestion, I plan on ordering the parts on sunday or so, so i can get everything by friday